When I walked ‘round Walden Pond
on a warm March day, I traced the foot-
print of the small cabin and wondered
about Thoreau and his solitude,
deliberate yet close to all he held dear.
Days later, home in my city,
my eldest simmered and coughed.
I gathered her and her sister, pulled
the door shut behind us and spun
a soft space where we might keep safe.
We did not know then that the thick
walls would hush and dim the sounds
of the street beyond, quiet and quieter,
and create an echo chamber for the cough
unending of my fevered daughter.
The cough resounded in each chime
of my phone, the CNN, NPR, New York
Times alerts, texts from friends, calls
from the doctor. We heard the world
shutter as she, then I, grew sick and sicker.
Alone in our city, I thought of Thoreau,
of his small pond and his long saunters,
of his dear Emerson who would come
sit for a spell in the cabin in the woods,
and leave his friend replenished.
When Thoreau emerged from the woods
two years later, he was a changed man
returned to a static world. But as we fought
for sleep, for air, for life, we had no idea what
strange and silent world would await our return.
To Live Deliberately
Ann E. Wallace is Poet Laureate of Jersey City, New Jersey and host of The WildStory: A Podcast of Poetry and Plants. She is the author of two poetry collections–Days of Grace and Silence: A Chronicle of COVID’s Long Haul, newly released from Kelsay Books and Counting by Sevens (Main Street Rag, 2019). She has previously published work in Thimble, One Art, Halfway Down the Stairs, Gyroscope Review, Wordgathering, and many other journals. You can follow her online at AnnWallacePhD.com and on Instagram @AnnWallace409.